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Seize the Day

by Saul Bellow

3.54 · rating details · 2,533 ratings · 201 reviews

Deftly interweaving humor and pathos, Saul Bellow evokes in the climactic events of one day the full drama of one man's search to affirm his own worth and humanity.

Paperback, 144 pages

Published May 27th 2003 by Penguin Classics (first published 1956)

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Jul 04, 2007

Jeffrey added it

The only Bellow novel I've read to date. I didn't especially care for it as I was reading it, but came to think more and more highly of it in the weeks after I finished it. Bellow has an almost uncanny power of description, and the character Tamkin must be one of the great creations of twentieth-century American literature (especially his poem, "Mechanism vs. Functionalism: Ism vs. Hism"). But what really impressed me about the book was realizing that it's really a profound religiou...moreThe only Bellow novel I've read to date. I didn't especially care for it as I was reading it, but came to think more and more highly of it in the weeks after I finished it. Bellow has an almost uncanny power of description, and the character Tamkin must be one of the great creations of twentieth-century American literature (especially his poem, "Mechanism vs. Functionalism: Ism vs. Hism"). But what really impressed me about the book was realizing that it's really a profound religious poem, about Tommy Wilhelm's attempt to save his soul in the materialistic wasteland of modern America. I only realized this reflecting on the scenes that stuck with me days and even weeks after reading the novel.

The novel almost begins with Wilhelm talking to Rubin, the man running the newstand at the hotel where Wilhelm lives. Rubin shares Wilhelm's taste for nice clothes, a small but revealing desire for beautiful but useless things ("It didn't seem necessary--he was behind the counter most of the time--but he dressed very well").

"As Wilhelm approached, Rubin did not see him; he was looking out dreamily at the Hotel Ansonia, which was visible from his corner, several blocks away. The Ansonia, the neighborhood's great landmark, was built by Stanford White. It looks like a baroque palace from Prague or Munich enlarged a hundred times, with towers, domes, huge swells and bubbles of metal gone green from exposure, iron fretwork and festoons. Black television antennae are densely planted on its round sumits. Under the changes of weather it may look like marble or like sea water, black as slate in the fog, white as tufa in sunllight. This morning it looked like the image of itself reflected in deep water, white and cumulous above, with cavernous distortions underneath. Together, the two men gazed at it."

The Ansonia is like a distant heavenly palace, or at least a visible representation of someplace different, better, more beautiful. The two men stand, looking at a necessarily distorted image of it, and are together as they do so. Later, as they briefly discuss Wilhelm's investments, Rubin loses interest and looks elsewhere.

Wilhelm's father, the hard, angry, greedy, materially sucessful Dr. Adler, appears throughout the short novel to criticize Wilhelm for being something of a failure. He is obsessed and resentful about his own impending death. We last see him in the bowels of the hotel building, in the dark and hot massage room. It's as if he's in hell. The concern for money and physical life have left him deformed and damned.

At first I disliked the ending of the novel; I thought it was an easy and slightly dishonest way to invest the ending with an emotional impact or meaning it hadn't earned. But, the more I thought about, the more powerful and even understated it seemed. So, in short, I think this is a very good short novel, and would recommend it to anyone.(less)

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Apr 11, 2011

Peter rated it

I'm on a bit of a novella reading binge at the moment, in preparation for a class I'm teaching next fall. And if this temporary obsession brings me to more books like SEIZE THE DAY, maybe it will become a lasting obsession.

Reading Saul Bellow is dangerous business for a writer because unless you are one of about five living authors I can think of, your sentences will never be as beautiful as Saul Bellow's. In fact it might be best just to say that out loud before sitting down to wri...moreI'm on a bit of a novella reading binge at the moment, in preparation for a class I'm teaching next fall. And if this temporary obsession brings me to more books like SEIZE THE DAY, maybe it will become a lasting obsession.

Reading Saul Bellow is dangerous business for a writer because unless you are one of about five living authors I can think of, your sentences will never be as beautiful as Saul Bellow's. In fact it might be best just to say that out loud before sitting down to write. As in "I am going to sit down to write now, and my sentences will never be as beautiful as Saul Bellow's." Then, at peace with that truth, you can begin to type.

I'm tempted to use an example here of one of the half-paragraph stunners that Bellow traffics in. Instead I'll list three one-sentence paragraphs that left me breathless.

"He breathed in the sugar of the pure morning.
He heard the long phrases of the birds,
No enemy wanted his life."

A little context might help explain why those lines hit with such force. So much of this book is in the churning consciousness of Tommy Wilhelm, and in his his Socratic dialogues with one of my favorite literary charlatans, Dr. Tamkin. Wilhelm worries. He worries about his worries. He seeks the smallest trace of affirmation from his fellow man. All the while he seems to revel in the misery he causes himself. Then he notices something about the world around him. "Light as a locust, a helicopter bringing in mail from Newark Airport to La Guardia sprang over the city in a long leap." Or: "In full tumult the great afternoon current raced for Columbus Circle, where the mouth of midtown stood open and the skyscrapers gave back the yellow fire of the sun." The world outside seems like a place of overwhelming beauty and overwhelming motion. Somewhere Wilhelm can no longer find his place.

We follow him as he journeys through a remarkably small part of this world, attempting to gain control of the present, but never quite able to touch it. It's a book that comes in great waves of talk, feeling, and the raw unconscious. An effective way to capture a true unraveling. A short potent dose of novella. (less)

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Dec 20, 2008

Mark rated it

Shelves: fiction

Bellow is an author I have been meaning to get to for a long time now. Known for attention to detail and his intense characterization using physical attributes he is certainly one of the most respected authors of the 20th Century. Seize the Day is about one man's epiphany while mired in a life that just isn't measuring up to his and other's expectations. A failed actor, failed business man, failed husband, failed son and failed father our protagonist has not met much success despite his being a ...more

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Jan 19, 2008

Nina rated it

I liked this book. It is about a man in his 40s whose life is falling apart and who is facing failure, and his relationship with his successful father who is a proud, well-respected doctor consumed with the idea of death in his old age. The entire (though short) book takes place in one day. I thought the book was very well-written and that Bellow really got at the psychological depth of these two people and their relationship with his insane attention to the most telling but minute details of...more

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Dec 03, 2011

Isabel rated it

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Tamkin was a charlatan, and furthermore he was desperate. And furthermore, Wilhelm had always known it about him. But he appeared to have worked it out at the back of his mind that Tamkin for thirty or forty years had gotten though many a tight place, that he would get through this crisis too and bring him, Wilhelm, to safety also. And Wilhelm realized that he was on Tamkin's back. It made him feel that he had virtually left the ground and was riding upon the other man. He was in the air. It was...more

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Dec 26, 2011

Kelli Robinson rated it

This novella, which took me longer to read than Pride and Prejudice, was not a quick and easy read. The picture depicted on the front cover of a man looking up at the very tall RCA Building (ominous/overbearing) and my memories of the phrase "seize the day" from the movie "The Dead Poet's Society" (suicide) set a tone to this novella - maybe unjustly. I felt the despair and desperation of Tommy Wilhelm from the start. His life was miserable and he could not seem to do anyt...more

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Dec 15, 2011

James rated it

I adored this book. What vitality and insight!

I think this book is basically a struggle between a father and a son. The son, Tommy Wilhelm, seems to be in the wrong (a slob who was irresponsibly narcissistic when he tried to be a movie star), yet because he is the protagonist, we identify with him and we are challenged to see how he could be in the right.

I think the way he's right is that there is a part of each of us that wants to fail, that feels sad, that wants to be child...more

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Oct 09, 2011

David Berry rated it

I can’t decide if Bellow’s choice of title was sincere or ironic. Carpe diem, Horace writes, quam minimum credula postero. Seize the day, put little faith in tomorrow. For Tommy Wilhelm, Bellow’s protagonist, his guide to the future is an occasionally insightful, often deceptive psychologist, Dr. Tamakin. Together, Wilhelm and Tamakin speculate on agricultural futures. (The spiritual emptiness of this profession reminds me of Faulkner’s Jason Compson). But betting on the future brings only...moreI can’t decide if Bellow’s choice of title was sincere or ironic. Carpe diem, Horace writes, quam minimum credula postero. Seize the day, put little faith in tomorrow. For Tommy Wilhelm, Bellow’s protagonist, his guide to the future is an occasionally insightful, often deceptive psychologist, Dr. Tamakin. Together, Wilhelm and Tamakin speculate on agricultural futures. (The spiritual emptiness of this profession reminds me of Faulkner’s Jason Compson). But betting on the future brings only ruin. Surely, Bellow was sincere in his allusive title. Then again, Horace instructs his reader to limit his hopes to today. Enjoy wine and friends, not lofty pursuits. Bellow, in contrast, affirms a fundamentally spiritual longing: What does it mean to be a man?

Seize the Day is plainly autobiographical in many ways. Like Bellow, Wilhelm grapples with a broken marriage, estranged children, and a financially successful father disappointed in his progeny. He struggles to maintain a Jewish identity in his old Hollywood days, even changing his name. Wilhelm has literary inklings, remembering lines of John Milton’s “Lycidas.” Yet Wilhelm is different enough from his creator to take on his own life. He is not incisive; he cannot quite articulate his own suffering. Only at the novel’s end, at a stranger’s funeral, does he at last find expression—tears so flowing that the other mourners wonder what close relation he had to the deceased. Wilhelm needs Bellow to make sense of his inchoate grief.

Though the novel spans only a single day, Bellow’s prose proceeds with sharp pace. He restrains aesthetic flourish in favor of description and dialogue, but when the flourish does appear, it is sublime. Near the depth of his fall, Wilhelm walks out onto Broadway to find “it was still bright afternoon and the gassy air was almost motionless under the leaden spokes of sunlight.” Sunlight inspires more trite, tired descriptions than almost any other occurrence, but only a fine writer indeed sees that to the truly forlorn, it is as heavy as lead. In this moment, Wilhelm (or is it Bellow) updates Walt Whitman’s New York democratic euphoria with modern anxiety:

And the great, great crowd, the inexhaustible millions of every race and kind pouring out, pressing round, of every age, of every genius, possessors of every human secret, antique and future, in every face the refinement of one particular motive or essence—I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than any man could make the tally.

Bellow, tally maker of the untallied. His sensitive man Wilhelm is left over, alienated from a world with mindless energy, a world run by money. (More than any other novelist I’ve read, Bellow understands what money means to men). Out of the masses of humanity, Wilhelm finds his epiphany in a dead stranger. The sane if sad thing to do is to pause and consider what awaits.
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Jul 05, 2011

Bob rated it

If you've ever lived between 70th and 80th Street near Broadway in New York, you might enjoy the geographic specificity of this book, set when the Ansonia was already a landmark but people (other than the mentally ill) still lived in residence hotels and men wore hats. It has an almost classical unity of 10 city blocks, half a day and three main characters. A failed salesman in early middle age, whose made a hash of most of his life, lives in the same residence hotel as his unsympathetic father,...more

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May 30, 2011

Fred Bubbers rated it

Originally published in 1957, Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day is considered one of the twentieth century’s finest works of fiction. It chronicles a single day in the life of one Tommy Wilhelm, a failed middle-aged actor, living on a precipice. Out of work, nearly broke, and estranged from his wife and children, he is haunted by all of the setbacks in his life and is searching for salvation in the form of an easy financial win that will solve all of his problems. On the advice of a mysterious psycho...moreOriginally published in 1957, Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day is considered one of the twentieth century’s finest works of fiction. It chronicles a single day in the life of one Tommy Wilhelm, a failed middle-aged actor, living on a precipice. Out of work, nearly broke, and estranged from his wife and children, he is haunted by all of the setbacks in his life and is searching for salvation in the form of an easy financial win that will solve all of his problems. On the advice of a mysterious psychologist, Dr. Tamkin, he has invested the last of his savings in the commodities market. Dr. Tamkin’s advice extends beyond investing and he provides advice to Wilhelm on how he should shed the burdens of his failed past and live in the here-and-now, in other words, to “Seize the Day.”

Tamkin’s council and Wilhelm’s inability to shed his burdens only serve to heighten Wilhelm’s sense of failure. Wherever he seeks sympathy, whether it be his estranged wife who continues to make financial demands on him while refusing to divorce him or his father, a comfortably retired doctor, finds nothing but reminders of his failures.

Born Wilhelm Adler, he changes his name to Tommy Wilhelm to further his acting career. His career never takes off and so he fails in his attempt to actually become Tommy Wilhelm, a failure he is constantly reminded of by his father who insists on addressing him as “Wilky,” his childhood name.

Seize the Day is a distinctly American story. Whereas British fiction from Daniel Defoe on up through today’s Ian McEwan is preoccupied by social and economic class distinctions, American society prides itself on being free from class. No matter what station we are born into, we believe that through hard work, perseverance, and strength of character we can succeed. If we do not succeed, it is obviously due to some flaw in our character. American fiction has always explored the chasm that exists between that Great American Ideal (and mythology) and the stark reality that the Universe has no concept of fairness. American literary characters, unlike their British counterparts, are therefore imbued with a greater sense of anomie. While British heroes and heroines may struggle to overcome the rigid class distinctions in their society, and usually fail, there is at least the idea that there is a sense of order in the Universe, no matter how harsh it may be. American literary figures, from Dreiser’s Clyde Griffiths to Fitzgerald’s James Gatz to Salinger’s Holden Caulfield to Miller’s Willy Loman, fight not against society but against nothingness.

Years after writing Seize the Day, Bellow said in interviews that never liked Tommy Wilhelm very much. Indeed, Wilhelm is not particularly likable and the reader is likely to feel as much sympathy for him as the other characters in the novella. “Stop whining, be a man, get a job!” we want to say to him. And yet, the story is compelling and unconsciously reaches those hidden parts of our psyche that fear the stark nothingness, and leads us to the novella’s surprisingly cathartic conclusion.(less)

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Feb 26, 2011

Northpapers rated it

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Shelves: favorites

Before I get into Saul Bellow's little powerhouse of a novel, a word about introductions, forewords, and prefaces.

Unless I finish a novel with a feeling of wonder, I rarely read the introduction. Any kind of foreword usually functions to inflate the page count, advertise the book (why, if I'm already reading a book, do I need to read an ad for it?), and attach some big shot author's name with the work at hand.

However, there are those few introductions which function as gr...more

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Feb 08, 2011

Josh rated it

The main character, Wilhelm, is the epitome of self-perpetuated failure. This is hard to sympathize with because I (and I assume other people as well) don't want to feel like I'm engendering, and thriving within, my own disappointments. The book is completely engaging and the last two pages make the whole thing worth it. The ending is very, very moving. I'm reading Bellow because Philip Roth said I should, so I have to admit I may be judging this novel with unfair expectations. I don't quite see...more

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Nov 13, 2010

Mark Lavin rated it

I am not sure my comments belong in such erudite company, but I consider myself a reader. This is the first Bellow I have attempted, and it was a disappointment. There is obviously skill here, but the characters and descriptions just didn't ring true for me. I suppose I took it too literally. I can't imagine a father so heartless and so hateful to a son. His wife is a total bitch. There was NO empathy. Tommy keeps having these physical symptoms that almost occupy the entire book. He has ...more

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Jun 11, 2010

Judy rated it

Recommends it for: Bellow fans and literary readers

Shelves: 20th-century-fiction, books-from-1956

This was Bellow's next work of fiction after The Adventures of Augie March (1953). It is that problematic piece of fiction called the "novella," somewhere between a short story and a novel. In fact, it was published in a volume containing an additional three short stories and a one-act play. Even over fifty years ago, publishers worried that the public would not pay the price of a whole book for such a short work. Of course, since Bellow packs so much in just a sentence, this is not a...more

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May 17, 2010

Rowland Bismark rated it

The Predicament of Modern Man

Seize the day is a reflection of the times in which it was written. The novel was written in a post-war world. WWII created several factors that serve as a backdrop to Wilhelm's isolation in the novel, an isolation that represents the feeling of many during the time period.
First and foremost, war creates dissolution and in many cases dislocation because of forced immigration. During the war many people, Jews especially, were escaping the Germans an...moreThe Predicament of Modern Man

Seize the day is a reflection of the times in which it was written. The novel was written in a post-war world. WWII created several factors that serve as a backdrop to Wilhelm's isolation in the novel, an isolation that represents the feeling of many during the time period.
First and foremost, war creates dissolution and in many cases dislocation because of forced immigration. During the war many people, Jews especially, were escaping the Germans and, thus, fleeing, when they could. Also, American troop and other members of the alliance were disillusioned to see that such horrors could exist. Finally, and in opposition to the above, the war had a positive effect of creating an economic boom. There was also a surge in technological interest in America. The reasons for this serge are two-fold: America was rich and America was involved in a post-WWII cold war with the Soviet Union, since the countries competed technologically. It is in this world that a man like Tommy Wilhelm is lost.

Tommy is an idealist surrounded by the pressures of the outside world. He is isolated and, thus, is forced to turn inward. The urban landscape is the symbol that furthers his isolation, for he is always "alone in a crowd." Bellow wants the reader to understand this isolation and thus has almost the entire novel take place within Wilhelm's head. We experience the back and forth of uncertainty, the wavering of watery thoughts, the sadness and frustration of being that person that is "alone in the crowd."

This isolation and inner struggle is the predicament of modernity. Bellow would not be the only modern master to touch up the subject. For instance, T.S. Eliot had written The Wasteland in which he discusses many of the same subjects as Bellow, albeit in a very different fashion and style. Eliot discusses the "unreal city" which can be compared to the city that Wilhelm feels so uncomfortable within. Eliot also claims that there are many "dead" within the crowds. This symbolic death points to the fact that the modern man seems only to be going through the motions of things. Wilhelm, for instance, at the beginning of the novel, is like a character seemingly dead, both in appearance and in the way he claims he will simply go about the actions of his day. Other similarities between The Wasteland and Seize the Day include the images of "drowning" and "water." Both writers used these images to illustrate a person drowning in life.

Seize the Day is not a regular day in the life of the modern man because it is a "day of reckoning," a day in which someone that is truly dead will give the protagonist a jolt of life. Unlike many modern masterpieces, Bellow has chosen a positive ending for his novel. He has also allowed his protagonist connections with the modern world. In Times Square, for example, Wilhelm had felt connected to the "larger body" of humanity. Furthermore, Bellow complicates the predicament of modernity by adding a very human and positive element. Bellow seems to be saying that the predicament of modern man goes far beyond the typical pessimism, cynicism, and isolation because it has the potential of reaching understanding and love.
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Apr 17, 2010

Dennis Littrell rated it

Shelves: fiction

Bellow, Saul. Seize the Day (1956)
A short novel, representative of Bellow's work

"Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow" is what Horace wrote at the end of his first book of Odes a couple of thousand years ago. And ever since, youth has been urged to make hay while the sun shines since the bird of time is on the wing--to toss in a couple more homilies. But what Saul Bellow has in mind here is entirely ironic since his sad protagonist, Tommy Wilhelm Adler has neve...more

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May 20, 2009

Jim rated it

· review of another edition

Apolgies in advance for skipping over the plot summary, but here's what I think I learned from this book:

1) Bellow, like Banville, is a master of characterization, the expression of character through movement, reaction, idiosyncrasies, etc. It's not just what they look like and what they're wearing (though this is important) it's what these things say about the character and how they're expressed through speech, interaction with others, moments of isolation, etc. It can't be all wood...moreApolgies in advance for skipping over the plot summary, but here's what I think I learned from this book:

1) Bellow, like Banville, is a master of characterization, the expression of character through movement, reaction, idiosyncrasies, etc. It's not just what they look like and what they're wearing (though this is important) it's what these things say about the character and how they're expressed through speech, interaction with others, moments of isolation, etc. It can't be all wooden descriptions of the external or the seething turmoil of the internal. If you want a reader to emotionally connect with your character you have to do both. Not just once or twice, but always. In a sense, Bellow is never not doing this and that's how the story advances.

2) The unlikable hero. Wilhelm is repugnant, utterly so. He fits the profile of a man about to hit bottom and though it's plain that he needs to embrace change he can't (or won't) until the collapse, which is inevitable, comes. Everyone around him acts consistently: his father finds him repugnant, the conman fleeces him, his estranged wife browbeats him -- as we would certainly do if we were in these positions. Wilhelm's personal habits are despicable, his weaknesses profound, he is incapable of change; however, his desire for it makes him somehow sympathetic. He wants what we all want: enough to get by on and to put our problems behind us, but instead of the high roads he takes the low, which ends up being a roundabout. He's doomed and Bellow makes us care.

3) When you truly inhabit a character, the chosen mode of expression becomes an almost arbitrary distinction. Ostensibly this is an third person, past tense, omniscient narrator deal, but Bellow uses first person present tense, second person direct address, even stream of consciousness in order to get inside his protagonist's head. Bellow's approach is "by any means necessary." Seize the Day is reminiscent of some of the Leopold Bloom sections of Ulysses, particularly toward the end where Wilhelm starts to recede, almost as if he is being absorbed into the city that he will probably leave.

This is really a fascinating little book that I imagine I'll come back to again. As a writer who obsesses over the mechanics of story, Seize the Day is wonderfully instructive. Also, Cynthia Ozick's introduction is awfully impressive. (less)

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Aug 24, 2010

Lobstergirl rated it

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Shelves: fiction

Bellow is a treat even if you don't completely swoon over every novel in its entirety. His descriptions, his dialogue, his portrayals of humanity are so rich. This novella is told from the point of view of the increasingly shabby and morose failed actor and salesman, Tommy Wilhelm, but Bellow also lets us in on what his disapproving father, Dr. Adler, thinks.

Then Wilhelm had said, "Yes, that was the beginning of the end, wasn't it, Father?"

Wilhelm often astoni

...moreBellow is a treat even if you don't completely swoon over every novel in its entirety. His descriptions, his dialogue, his portrayals of humanity are so rich. This novella is told from the point of view of the increasingly shabby and morose failed actor and salesman, Tommy Wilhelm, but Bellow also lets us in on what his disapproving father, Dr. Adler, thinks.

Then Wilhelm had said, "Yes, that was the beginning of the end, wasn't it, Father?"

Wilhelm often astonished Dr. Adler. Beginning of the end? What could he mean - what was he fishing for? Whose end? The end of family life? The old man was puzzled but he would not give Wilhelm an opening to introduce his complaints. He had learned that it was better not to take up Wilhelm's strange challenges. So he merely agreed pleasantly, for he was a master of social behavior, and said, "It was an awful misfortune for us all."

He thought, What business has he to complain to me of his mother's death?

Another great passage: Wilhelm comes down to the lobby of the Hotel Gloriana where he lives, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He's the youngest resident in a building full of Jewish retirees, including his father. Rubin runs the lobby newsstand:

...As Wilhelm approached, Rubin did not see him; he was looking out dreamily at the Hotel Ansonia, which was visible from his corner, several blocks away. The Ansonia, the neighborhood's great landmark, was built by Stanford White. It looks like a baroque palace from Prague or Munich enlarged a hundred times, with towers, domes, huge swells and bubbles of metal gone green from exposure, iron fretwork and festoons. Black television antennae are densely planted on its round summits. Under the changes of weather it may look like marble or like sea water, black as slate in the fog, white as tufa in sunlight. This morning it looked like the image of itself reflected in deep water, white and cumulous above, with cavernous distortions underneath. Together, the two men gazed at it.

[Wikipedia notes that Bellow incorrectly attributed the Ansonia to Stanford White.:]

Cynthia Ozick makes an interesting comparison of Hemingway and Bellow in her introduction:

In 1953, Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March struck out on a course so independent from the tide of American fiction that no literary lessons could flow from it: it left no wake, and cut a channel so entirely idiosyncratic as to be uncopyable. Much earlier, Ernest Hemingway had engineered another radical divergence in the prose of the novel: having inherited the stylistic burden of the nineteenth century, with its elaborate "painting" of interiors and landscapes, its obligatory omniscience, and its essaylike moralizing, he mopped up the excess moisture ("clothing like curds," he called it) and lopped subordinate clauses and chopped dialogue and left little of the old forest of letters standing. An army of succinctness-seekers followed in a movement that accommodated two or three generations of imitators, until finally the distinctive Hemingway dryness flaked off into lifeless dessication. The Hemingway sentence became a kind of ancestral portrait on the wall, and died of too many descendants. Augie March, by contrast (though it had its own ancestors, not so much in style as in character), was in itself too fecund to produce epigones or copyists or offspring - as if every source and resource of procreation were already contained in, or used up by, its own internal energies.

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May 14, 2010

Adam Spektor rated it

Despite its short length and clear plot, "Seize the Day" is deceivingly difficult to pin down, as any morals one would attempt to derive from what, at its surface, may appear to be a moralistic story, are convoluted and unclear. At times, this novel seemed like a borderline self-help book, only to take an unexpected left turn into emotional obscurity and blunt emphasis on life's drudgeries. This isn't to say that "Seize the Day" is nihilistic either; it's excellently shaped...more

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Dec 15, 2009

Harold Griffin rated it

I loved this book and commend it to someone interested in sampling Bellow. Unlike "Herzog"and the formidable "Adventures of Augie March," the rich and engaging prose in this small novella is easily accessible. "Seize" is populated by only a few, but all memorable, characters. I'm not sure I would have loved this as a younger dino (say in my early Pennsylvanian period), but this year it resonates.

Tommy Wilhelm was born Wilhelm ("Wilky") Adler...more

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Aug 17, 2011

Fleech rated it

Tommy Wilhelm is disliked by his wife, who refuses to divorce him, and his father, who refuses to aid him finically and starves him of any type of affection. His stressful financial situation leaves him in a panic, and he turns to Dr. Tamkin as his last resort. Dr. Tamkin is a wily man, no one knows if he is a doctor, and if there is there is any truth behind his exaggerated stories.

Wilhelm wants to be freed from his chaotic life, and continually asks his father, Dr. Adler, for assist...more

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Apr 20, 2011

Nick rated it

I super liked it .... Not because Bellow was born in Canada, not because he got the Nobel Prize in 1976 ... This relatively short novel makes a lot out of an apparently simple picture. The main character, Tommy Wilhelm, has to ultimately deal with problems by himself - there is no family to help him out. Saul Bellow proposes a very interesting situation, especially in the self-reliant American society.

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Nov 22, 2010

Fabian rated it

This novella about the morning hours in the life of a man that is falling apart is authentic New York narrative AND somber urban fable. Written in '56, it is still supremely relevant and I bet there are dozens, perhaps thousands, of Tommy Wilhems out there in the world, and they are all MODERN MEN; Wilhem is a man confused and, in the same vein as lame-o Holden C., one unhappy with his placement in society, who is also questioning his duties as a "man." The episode between Wilhem and h...more

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Jun 28, 2011

Kelly rated it

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"...since there were depths in Wilhelm not unsuspected by himself, he received a suggestion from some remote element in his thoughts that the business of life, the real business -- to carry his peculiar burden, to feel shame and impotence, to taste these quelled tears -- the only important business, the highest business was being done. Maybe the making of mistakes expressed the very purpose of his life and the essence of his being here. Maybe he was supposed to make them and suffer from t...more

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Nov 10, 2010

Kendall rated it

It was pretty good. I liked how not many big events happend. Instead there were many small things that built up to the epiphany for the character. All the events were more subtle. To get the meaning out of the events you'd have to think more deeply and take in them all together in a broad spectrum. I didn't like the lack of characters. Only three characters were actually important in the novel. I think that the novel should've contained more chacters, but I can see how that with just the few it ...more

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Feb 24, 2009

Tara rated it

It's been about a week since I finished this book, and have picked up two new books in the meantime, so my first thoughts are a bit hazy and lost to other curiosities. However, the thing about the book that has stuck with me - and will no doubt lead me to re-reading it in later years - is its examination of American ideals and the internal grapplings of a human soul. How wonderfully fresh and true this story remains today, over 50 years after it was written! Tommy, the novel's protagonist, must ...more

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Jan 12, 2011

sonia rated it

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Poco puedo añadir a lo que ya se ha dicho. Wilhelm es un perdedor, un hombre que parece no hacer otra cosa que equivocarse, y por eso me causó cierta simpatía desde un primer momento. Él también lo cree, también piensa que fracaso tras fracaso nunca aprende, aunque reflexione sobre qué hacer siempre comete una equivocación. Luego avanzo por la novela y me parece cada vez más entrañable, aunque triste toda su historia.
Él no sabe muy bien si culparse a sí mismo, a otros, o a una suerte de des...more

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Nov 10, 2010

Andrew Lee rated it

I have enjoyed this book very much. Unlike many books, this book talks what the main character, Tommy Wilhelm, experienced in his one day. Tommy is considered as a complete failure from his father and feel isloated from community. Unhappy marriage with no job, Tommy is in a tight situation. Many emotions felt by this character at once is unbearing and I feel his pain. For some reason, I can sort of relate to him how sometimes we feel lonely and feel like we are looked down upon.

In t...more

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Mar 11, 2009

Meg rated it

· review of another edition

This is a tough one...I couldn't decided if I liked it or not! Two or three stars...? Hmmmmmn, that is the question. I bumped up because I admired the author's writing style. And the story? Yes, I liked that too... I could related to the character (where depression is putting it mildly) although he was male and most likely in the middle of what is too simply called a "midlife crisis". This is a book that could be analyzed, metaphors could be taken from it, lives could possibly b...more

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Apr 29, 2010

Melanie added it

Shelves: college-bound-list-11th-grade, 1001-books-2006

I'm having a hard time giving this one a star rating, mostly because it's more philosophy than novel. Saul Bellow does have the amazing ability to make you see and understand everything from Wilhelm's point of view. The reader is completely immersed in Wilky's brain. I saw everything from Wilky's point of view as I was reading, even though after I finished and thought about it a bit, I realized that I think a little bit more like his wife than him. He is hoping that everything will just work out...more

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About Saul Bellow

Celebrated American Jewish writer.
Awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work."

The author's works speak to the disorienting nature of modern civilization, and the countervailing ability of humans to overcome their frailty and achieve greatness (or at least awareness). B...more

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“You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half. ” — 17 people liked it

“Bringing people into the here-and-now. The real universe. That's the present moment. The past is no good to us. The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real--the here-and-now. Seize the day.” — 8 people liked it

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